Fashion Rant: High-Priced Idiocy, Courtesy of Chanel

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The latest addition to Chanel’s line of sportswear includes a luxury angler kit.  As in fly-fishing.  Now, I’m going to put myself out there and show that I know a little too much about fishing while I explain my numerous problems with this.  The kit includes a fishing rod, black and white flies complete with the looping double C’s of the Chanel logo, and is ensconced in a large quilted lambskin case (from the piccy,  looks like the strap is also the signature metal chain …).

So, why fishing?  Supposedly Coco Chanel was a big fan salmon fishing in Norway (which you have to do in saltwater, so you can’t flyfish, meaning the flies provided in the kit can’t be used for Coco’s fave pasttime, but that’s another story).  Something tells me she didn’t bait her own hooks and that the messier, smellier side of fishing was never explained to those haute folks on the design team at Chanel.  Not only will that quilted lambskin stink after a few fishing expeditions, but it sure isn’t going to hold up well to water (flyfishing is best done in the early morning, when there is generally a lot of moisture in the air.  And you stand in the water, wearing waders, which are ridiculously un-fashionable).  My final, enormous problem with this exorbitantly expensive piece of sporting vanity is that there are different types of flies for each fish, and while I’m not an expert, something tells me that a trout isn’t going to be attracted to the Chanel logo on the flies in the same way that Upper East Side princesses are.  In the unlikely event that a fashionable fish is paddling around out there, it will probably eat the lure and escape with it, as fish are often wont to do.

P.S. Having grown up in a coastal area with lots of fishermen, it’s pratically di rigeur that you toss back a few beers, preferably something that comes in the always classy 30-rack.  Natty Light and Chanel?  It’s a match made in heaven …